Useful Links:

Since our meeting is fairly short (3.5 days) and covers a wide range of topics, we
obviously have a very limited amount of time available for talks in each of the areas
we wish to cover. We felt that the best way to handle this was to have the program
consist primarily of reviews by invited speakers, plus
poster displays by other attendees. Time has also been set aside
during each morning and afternoon session for "poster highlight" talks; the SOC voted
for a few posters in each session (based on submitted abstracts) whose authors were
invited to give short talks on their research.

Posters:
The useable space available for each poster will be 97 x 197 cm, the total
height being 220 cm. A photo of a poster is shown here.

Poster papers are displayed in Terrace I (T1), Terrace II (T2) on the 2nd floor and in
the South Hall (SH) on the 3rd floor for the entire week their sessions are on. The
detailed instruction where to mount it will be given at the registration and at the poster
areas. Posters for Symposium 240 will be mounted in the South Hall.

Invited talks:
We have received a fair bit of information from the LOC of the Prague GA:

Technical Equipment: The technical equipment available in each of the Session
Rooms is as follows:

Data projector + computer

Screen

Overhead projector

Sounding (depending of the size of the meeting room)

Microphones (1 headset for speaker, 1-2 for discussion - depending on the
size of the meeting room, 1 for chairman table)

Laser pointer

Lectern (depending of the size of the meeting room)

Chairman table

connection for the presenter's laptop
!!!Please be advised that using the computer supplied in the session rooms is
the most preferable solution!!!

technical support staff (student)

hostess (1-2, depending on the room size)

chairs - theatre style seating, maximum possible capacity

Speaker Preparation Room: All speakers should discuss his/her presentation
beforehand (at least 4 hours prior your presentation) with people in the Speaker
Preparation Room (on the foyer of the 3rd floor), otherwise there may be
incompatibility problems. Opening hours of Speaker Preparation Room:

Sat August 12 12:00-18:00

Sun August 13 10:00-20:00

Mon-Fri 08:00-18:00

Sat August 19 09:00-13:00 (urgent assistance only)

Sun August 20 16:00-20:00 (urgent assistance only)

Mon-Thu 08:00-18:00

Fri August 25 08:00-12:00

How to Deliver the Presentation: Following on from the visit the Speaker
Preparation Room, speakers are requested to visit their session room during any
break before their session starts and contact the technician to upload and check
with him that the presentation is ready in the computer (the session rooms will be
opened on weekdays from 08:00 through 18:00)

Speakers with their own laptop will be given full assistance with connecting
to the audio-visual equipment in the meeting/session room.

Audiovisual recording during symposia: In order to ease editing of the
proceedings, quote the discussions, etc., the IAU plans to perform video-records of
each talk during all IAU symposia.

When the symposium is over, the co-chairs/editors will be given a set of DVD discs,
which we will use to assist in editing the proceedings. The IAU notes that any form
of publishing the records on the web or elsewhere requires the speaker's given
permission, which we will request when we begin work on the proceedings.

Registration:
Information about registration for the XXVIth IAU General Assembly may be found at the
GA website. Please note that there is no separate
registration for Symposium 240, or any other meeting held during the General Assembly. The
IAU registration form gives you the option of indicating any symposia or other GA-related
meetings which are of interest to you (with no obligation to attend, of course). Please note
that the deadline for late registration has passed as of August 7;
only on-site registration is now possible.

Travel grants:
The deadline for requesting travel support was April 9, and all grants have now been issued.
Funding requests were sent to us by ~80 people, and totaled some five times the amount of money
allocated to us by the IAU. We were fortunately able to obtain an outside matching grant, which
doubled the number of people who were able to receive at least partial support. We're sorry if
you did not receive the amount of support you requested.

Submitting abstracts:
The deadline for submission of abstracts was June 26, 2006. The list of
all registered abstracts for our symposium is available
here, as
well as in our program.